US President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to hit 52 Iranian sites "very hard" if Iran attacks Americans or US assets after a drone strike that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani and an Iraqi militia leader, as tens of thousands of people marched in Iraq to mourn their deaths
Showing no signs of seeking to ease tensions raised by the strike he ordered that killed Soleimani and Iranian-backed Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis at Baghdad airport on Friday, Trump issued a threat to Iran on Twitter. The strike has raised the spectre of wider conflict in the Middle East.
Iran, Trump wrote, "is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets" in revenge for Soleimani's death. Trump said the United States has "targeted 52 Iranian sites" and that some were "at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD."
“The USA wants no more threats!” Trump said, adding that the 52 targets represented the 52 Americans who were held hostage in Iran for 444 days after being seized at the US Embassy in Tehran in November 1979 — an enduring sore spot in US-Iranian relations.
Trump did not identify the sites. The Pentagon referred questions about the matter to the White House, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Among the mourners in Iraq included many militiamen in uniform for whom Muhandis and Soleimani were heroes. They carried portraits of both men and plastered them on walls and armoured personnel carriers in the procession. Chants of "Death to America" and "No No Israel" rang out.
On Saturday evening, a rocket fell inside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone near the US Embassy, another hit the nearby Jadriya neighbourhood and two more were fired at the Balad air base north of the city, but no one was killed, Iraq's military said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Iraq's Kataib Hezbollah militia warned Iraqi security forces to stay away from US bases in Iraq, "by a distance not less than a thousand metres (six-tenths of a mile) starting Sunday evening," reported Lebanese Al Mayadeen TV, which is close to Lebanon's Hezbollah.
Trump said on Friday Soleimani had been plotting "imminent and sinister" attacks on American diplomats and military personnel. Democratic critics said the Republican president's action was reckless and risked more bloodshed in a dangerous region. (Gulf)